I don’t know what’s better: Derrick Rose carefully adding icing to a cake or Josh Smith advising Michael Jordan, “Can’t eat sushi in Utah, brotha.” I would discuss further, but I’m on the phone with my moms.

By the way (“hold on a damn second, moms!”), I just came across a piece on David Berri’s blog comparing Rondo to the guards who made Team USA (I know, I know, I can’t let it go): “Rajon Rondo was clearly the most productive player in this group,” the author, Ben Gulker, wrote, “and frankly, it wasn’t close.”

That productivity was in the NBA, not the international game, but still. Gulker continued to explain why Rondo would have been a great fit for the team. Read it, it’s interesting. You know, as long as you still care about Rondo’s mysterious departure from the national team. Or if you just want to read about how Rondo produced far more wins than Chauncey Billups, Derrick Rose or any other guard who made Team USA’s roster.

Good to see Lebron's still humble.

Rajon Rondo and Glen Davis were seen partying with Lebron James and Dwyane Wade in Las Vegas on Friday. Maybe that would explain Rondo’s performance in Saturday’s scrimmage. (The Examiner via Ball Don’t Lie)

King James arrived to cheers at Tao Beach and was joined in the grand cabana by a group of friends including new Miami Heat teammate Dwayne Wade and Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets. At one point the fans in the pool chanted his name and James pulled out his camera to capture the moment. Nearby, former NBA player Alan Henderson and Glen Davis from the Boston Celtics also took in the sun and the scene. [...]

Basketball’s most wanted man, LeBron James, spent the night at Lavo inside The Palazzo celebrating his recent contract signing with the Miami Heat. James was joined by Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets, San Diego Charger Shaun Phillips, Atlanta Hawk Josh Smith, Rudy Gay of the Memphis Grizzlies, Boston Celtic Rajon Rondo and Larry Hughes of the Charlotte Bobcats. Fans of all ages waited outside the celebrity dining hotspot for the arrival of King James, who enjoyed dinner at the Italian eatery after walking the red carpet.

After dinner, James and his friends took over some VIP tables on the dance floor in Lavo’s nightclub where they danced and partied the night away, fueled by Perrier Jouët Rose Champagne, Patron Tequila and vodka.

Get mad at this if you want but, really, it doesn’t matter one bit. I have a lot of friends I used to play basketball against. And you know what? Every time I played against them I wanted to tear their hearts out and watch them bleed.

What in the world is Sheed doing?

Despite reports that he might renege on his retirement talk, Rasheed Wallace is still expected to retire. Doc Rivers said the chances are ”very little or none” Sheed will play next season. (NBA Fanhouse)

Celtics coach Doc Rivers said Monday that Wallace is assisting the team by not filing retirement papers any time soon.

“He’s trying to help us out by waiting, which is good,” Rivers said of Wallace, due to make $6.32 million next season and $6.79 million in 2011-12. “He’s still our property so we can use that in a trade or something. He’s doing a great thing for us.”

While there has been some speculation Wallace might not retire now that Rivers has assured that he will return to the Celtics and star forward Paul Pierce is on the verge of signing a new contract, Rivers said the chances are “very little or none” the forward will play next season.

Boston general manager Danny Ainge, joining Rivers and the Celtics at the AirTran Airways Pro Summer League, said that “as far as I know” Wallace will retire. He also spoke of Wallace holding off to help the Celtics, saying, “We’re hoping that will happen. A piece (for the team to use in a possible deal).”

With that in mind, the Celtics can get back to searching for trades. By the way, today marks the third day in a row the Boston Herald has mentioned the C’s interest in Rudy Fernandez and Leandro Barbosa: We get it by now, guys. The Celtics are very intrigued by the possibility of adding one of those guys to be a sparkplug off the bench.

Speaking of trades, Josh Smith is reportedly on the market. Would Sheed, Big Baby and a first-round pick net him? Because that would be fab.

Any other potential trade targets you guys think would fit?

Well done, Rajon. Well done.

Not only was Rajon Rondo named to the NBA’s First Team All-Defense, but he also received the second-most votes for the team behind Dwight Howard.

Rondo absolutely, 100%, no doubt about it, deserved the recognition.  Yeah Rondo sometimes gambles too often, but he is a more disruptive  defender than any other guard in the league.  He covers an incredible amount of ground in a matter of split-seconds and can take a team entirely out of its offense with his propensity for steals.  He’s as fast as point guards come, has defensive instincts normal humans could only dream of, and the best part about all those steals he picks up is that they turn into points going the other way.

Here’s the rest of the All-Defensive Teams:

First Team:

Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics (50 points — two points for First-Team vote, one for Second-Team vote)

Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers (34)

Lebron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (45)

Gerald Wallace, Charlotte Bobcats (30)

Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic (57)

Second Team:

Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat (20)

Thabo Sefolosha, Oklahoma City Thunder (14)

Josh Smith, Atlanta (20)

Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs (21)

Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers (15)

I’ve got a serious problem with Varejao on the Second Team.  He’s a very good defender, don’t get me wrong, but he plays only 28 minutes a game! That’s barely more than half a game.  Really, he was a better defensive player than Andrew Bogut, who anchored one of the league’s top defenses while playing 35 minutes a game?  I know Varejao is a great flopper, very good rebounder and has an Energizer Bunny motor, but he doesn’t deserve to be on the Second Team All-Defense.  Not at all.

Want a voting oddity?  Dwight Howard was named to the Second Team on one ballot.  Whoever didn’t put him on the First Team should be given the Old Yeller treatment.  Want another voting oddity?  Earl Watson received a vote for Second Team.  Since it’s the coaches who vote for the teams, I can only assume there’s some coach in the league having an affair with Earl Watson.

Back to Rondo now, congrats sir.  You are officially the Celtics’ best player on both ends of the floor.

The Celtics have gotten rid of their morning walkthrough, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Here are a few Celtics links, and maybe even an NBA link or two, to help wake you up and get you focused for the day.

He doesn't look so bad, does he?

Chris Gasper, Boston Globe – “Essentially, what the Celtics have been presented is a do-over of the 2009 playoffs, but with Garnett a go and Cleveland standing in for Orlando. The team is virtually identical because the additions of Rasheed Wallace, Marquis Daniels, and Nate Robinson have had no impact. Last year, the Celtics were ousted in the second round by Orlando in seven games. If that happens at the hands of Cleveland this year, then their run has run its course, and they’re the 1991 Detroit Pistons, who coincidentally went 50-32, to LeBron’s Michael Jordan. We were hard on the Celtics because we expected so much of them, but now they’re in a position to finally fulfill those expectations. Bring on LeBron.”

Bill Livingston, Cleveland Plain Dealer – “Hopes will have to wait that the Big Shillelagh will immediately break out the whuppin’ stick on the Boston Celtics, who begin their second-round series with the Cavs Saturday night at The Q. It was Celtic reserve Glen “Big Baby” Davis whose perfectly legal play on the ball led to Shaq’s torn thumb ligament — and whose tugging on the thumb afterward was both repulsive and typical of the Celtics. After the Bulls had been sent to their rooms, O’Neal fielded questions about Davis’ play with blandness. The two do share a background of playing for LSU, but old college ties mean nothing now. ‘Nothing bothers me,’ said the Big Serenity. ‘I don’t think [that the play was dirty]. I’m just glad I got my thumbs back. You need your thumbs. Your thumbs are very, very important.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “Jamison averaged 19.3 points in Cleveland’s five-game first-round series against the Bulls, and he took nearly a third of his shots from 3-point range (7 of 23). He was spelled by Varejao, the sixth-year power forward who plays as if he’s never heard of inertia, making a living off hustle plays and feasting on the Celtics during the regular season by being quicker to get to open spots on the floor. It’s a matchup problem for the Celtics’ big men, who will have to flip the switch from guarding the post to jumping out to the perimeter, chasing Cleveland’s pseudo-bigs. Glen Davis put it this way: ‘Imagine if you had to bump Shaq [coming off a pick-and-roll] and then close out on Antawn Jamison when he just hit two in a row. Or with Rashard Lewis, you’ve got to bump Dwight [Howard] and get out to Rashard and force him left instead of right. You’re closing out to him and he can make you do anything he wants to, really. You’ve just got to have a feel for the game and just got to have a will to do a lot of things out there on guys like that.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “There is the Davis who made all of the hustle plays Tuesday night, from drawing two huge second-half charges on Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem to grabbing most of the big rebounds down the stretch. And then there’s the young player who is still a little too intoxicated by the memory of his game-winning 20-footer in last May’s Game 4 in Orlando. That’s the player who doesn’t always make the extra pass. But he seems to be coming around. ‘He’s just got to stay there,’ coach Doc Rivers said. ‘We tell all of our players this: ‘You don’t need a parade out there every game. You’ve just got to continue to play. And then your body will work when it’s all said and done. Then you can have the festivities.’ And that’s Baby in a nutshell. He is so talented, and his IQ is ridiculous. It really is. But he lets up at times. He starts thinking about what he’s done well, instead of just keep playing. And he’s a young kid still. That’s the maturity part that is growing. And I think it’s getting better and better. He has proven over the long haul, though, that in big games he tends to play well. He did it in college and he’s done it here.’”

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald – “‘I’ve maintained that I like this team,’ Rivers said. ‘You know, when we were struggling, no one wanted to hear that. I got that. I understood that, but I knew what I had, and I knew that my goal was to get them healthy. And if that meant . . . you know, I didn’t want to lose games, but you had to take that risk during the regular season. We had to choose health over anything, and I understood that. The first thing Erik (Spoelstra, the Miami coach) said was, ‘Boy, you had a hell of a fight trying to keep these guys healthy.’ And I said, ‘It was brutal.’ But it was the right move. It was. I mean, you had to. That’s our only chance. So now we’re healthy, we’re rested and we’re ready.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “”You definitely had your doubts at times because of the inconsistent play, injuries just seem to be mounting and mounting,” said Pierce, who was sidelined for 11 games this season. But he’s not griping. In fact, he embraces those times as moments that showcased this team’s character and resiliency. ‘The losing teams tend to point the finger, go to the media, says this guy need to do this better or do that better,’ Pierce said. ‘And we never held grudges with one another.’ Kevin Garnett also addressed some of the struggles Boston has endured this season, and it’s impact on the team moving forward. ‘If you want something to happen, you have to gather everybody and it’s a group effort,’ Garnett said. ‘But if you want something to work, you have to actually grab everybody, get everybody on the same page and work towards that goal.’”

Paul Flannery, WEEI – “The Cleveland Cavaliers have the best record in the NBA and the best player in the world on their roster. Of course this was the exact same scenario for the Cavs last season, and they ultimately lost to Orlando conference finals. General manager Danny Ferry bolstered his team with additions big (Shaquille O’Neal and Antawn Jamison) and small (Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon) and found improvement from within in young forward J.J. Hickson. Noted Celtic killer Anderson Varejao had the best season of his career, Mo Williams continued to shoot over 40 percent from 3-point range, effectively ending the necessity for Daniel Gibson to get playing time, and Delonte West re-emerged as a key third guard. Then, there is LeBron James, who has shattered the best player in the league argument and seems poised to truly rule the world if he can deliver a championship to his hometown team before engaging in the most frenzied free-agent courtship the league has ever known. Ah, but the Celtics have other ideas.”

Jessica Camerato, WEEI – “‘My role since I’ve been here really hasn’t changed. I can just be a little bit more vocal now that I’ve been here for a while,’ Finley explained. ‘I just didn’t want to come here right away and be the loud mouth of the locker room. But now the guys feel a little more comfortable with me. I’m able to pull guys to the side, tell them different situations, especially in these playoff series that are important, not only to them, but to our team. And they’re listening and they’re being receptive, and that’s been good.’ The 37-year-old is happy to share the veteran wisdom he has accumulated over the last 15 years, and the C’s are just as happy to receive it. ‘Mike is big,’ said Ray Allen. ‘Most people don’t realize the things that he’s saying, just his advice, just some of the things that he says coming out of timeouts, coming to the bench. You can always tell he wants to win. Even though he came here later on in the season, he’s invested now in what we’re doing. So he’s always making sure, ‘Look for this, this is what’s going to go down,’ or, ‘Ray, you need to do this,’ or ‘Paul you need to make sure …’ So that’s great coming from the bench and you know that he’s fielding us more information so when we go out there, we’re prepared.’”

Charles F. Gardner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – “Keep counting ‘em out, all you National Basketball Association experts. These Milwaukee Bucks will just keep fighting to the end. The Atlanta Hawks found that out the hard way on Wednesday night in Game 5 of the teams’ Eastern Conference series, as the Bucks got off the mat to grab a stunning 91-87 victory at Philips Arena. The Bucks have won three straight games against the third-seeded Hawks while taking a 3-2 lead in the first-round series, and Milwaukee can eliminate Atlanta in Game 6, scheduled for Friday night at the Bradley Center. Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova showed his trademark hustle while grabbing offensive rebounds, and Milwaukee went on a dazzling 14-0 run in the final 4 minutes to erase an 82-73 deficit and end the Hawks’ 14-game home winning streak. ‘This is by far the biggest win of the season,’ said Bucks guard John Salmons. ‘We’ve still got business to take care of, so we’ve got to stay with it.’”

Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution – “This was the Falcons blowing the lead against Danny White and Dallas in January 1981. This was Mark Wohlers hanging the slider to Jim Leyritz in October 1996. Only it wasn’t. It was worse. Those opponents were top-class. The Hawks just blew a 13-point lead and probably a playoff series to Milwaukee, which is a No. 6 seed missing its All-Star center. They trail 3-2 in a series they led 2-0. They face elimination on the road, a place they’ve won once in 11 tries over the past three postseasons. Yeah, theoretically they could still pull this out, but how can you win in the Bradley Center when you can’t hold a nine-point lead inside the final four minutes with the series lead on the line? How can you put this colossal choke — I hate that word, but it applies here — behind you? Up nine, and here’s what happened: Josh Smith missed a dunk by hitting the ball on the underside of the backboard; Jamal Crawford short-armed a layup, the first of his five misses down the stretch; the Hawks watched as Ersan Ilyasova grabbed every loose ball and Joe Johnson fouled out on a charge. Nine points up with 3:55 left, the Hawks saw the lead disappear in 116 seconds. I say again: One hundred sixteen seconds. There are no excuses for this game, this series. The team with the better players is the one with one foot out the exit door. The Bucks have two chances to win once. The Hawks are down to their final shot.”

Benjamin Hochman, Denver Post – “Help? Melo got it. Selfish? Not the Nuggets, at least not this night. Game 6? A reality. For one night, all was right with the Nuggets, who played poised and possessed Wednesday during a 116-102 victory over Utah at the Pepsi Center. Overcoming the loss of Nene because of a knee injury, Denver forced Game 6 to be played Friday in Salt Lake City, with the Jazz leading the first-round playoff series 3-2. A source familiar with the situation said the Nuggets are fearful Nene tore the ACL in his left knee. He is scheduled to have an MRI on Thursday.”

J.A. Adande, ESPN – “Not only did Anthony receive the assistance from his teammates he all but Bat-signaled for from the dais last Sunday, he delivered 25 points and 11 rebounds. He managed to involve his teammates without too much dropoff of his own from his 39-point, 11-rebound Game 4. Sure the point total declined, but the number of turnovers also went from nine to one. A team official told Anthony he was as proud of him as he’d ever been after this game. If the Nuggets are going to exit the playoffs, apparently their disappearance won’t be traced back to Anthony. He already double his double-double total from all of last playoffs (anyone else craving In-N-Out Burger after that sentence?). And he’s put up a better resistance to elimination. In Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers last season, in what turned out to be the finale of his breakthrough playoffs, Anthony scored 25 points but shot only 35 percent and grabbed two rebounds.”

Have a link I might want to look at? Send it my way by email (jayking@celticstown.com) or Twitter.

Put the ball up, bring it back down, lift it back up, and slam it home.  The easy four-step plan to completing Josh Smith’s double-pump dunk against the Milwaukee Bucks.  Of course, in order to execute it you have to be 6’9″ tall, bouncier than a kangaroo, and possess the wingspan of a Boeing 747 airplane.  Not an easy task, I can assure you.

But for Smith, it’s NBD. No big deal, that is.  My roommate, while we watched this, said he didn’t think it was clean.  Clean or not, it’s almost impossible for a mere mortal to do.